October 16th, 2007

Rice Hints At Timing Of Mideast Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Steven Lee Myers - October 16, 2007 - 12:24pm

It has officially been a secret of American diplomacy, if not a particularly well-kept one: the time and place of the international conference called by President Bush to begin negotiating peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.   Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday lifted the secrecy and, perhaps, nudged the process forward.

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Mideast Summit Faces Huge Challenges
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Steven Gutkin - October 16, 2007 - 12:22pm

Israel keeps building settlements, Islamic militants are in control in Gaza and both the Israelis and the Palestinians have politically vulnerable leaders. All that will make it difficult to implement an agreement even if the two sides agree on a path to peace at a summit next month. Weighing heavily on the U.S.-brokered summit is memory. Everyone remembers the steep price paid for the failure of the last round of peacemaking in 2001: thousands killed in years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting that broke out months after the talks fell apart.

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October 15th

The Associated Press looks at how the memory of the failed Camp David talks in 2001 is weighing heavily on the parties to the Mideast fall meeting (2.) The Washington Post examines the efforts by Secretary Rice to bridge the gap between Israelis and Palestinians during her current trip to the region (4.) In his periodic 'Letter From Israel' Ran Ha Cohen looks at the newly released 'peace initiative' by the Israeli far Right (5.) An International Herald Tribune opinion by Century Foundation and New America Foundation senior fellow Daniel Levy urges the construction of an alliance of peace camp groups to counter the hawkish right-wing constituency in the U.S. (7.) In BitterLemons (Israel/Palestine) Israeli professor of government Galia Golan looks at the confluence of factors making the fall Mideast meeting a genuine opportunity for furthering Israeli-Palestinian peace (11.) Haaretz (Israel) presents the latest Peace Index Project polling of the Israeli people on the fall meeting (13.) Also in Haaretz, Akiva Eldar analyzes the three alternatives available to President Bush regarding the substance of the fall meeting and each alternative's supporters (15.)

Only Bush Can
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) October 15, 2007 - 3:41pm

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that the Annapolis declaration will detail the principles of the permanent settlement, so yesterday's newspaper headlines proclaimed. Prior to her arrival in the region, her aides had said that the United States would not issue invitations to the peace conference before Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas succeed in drafting a clear and mutually agreed upon document. In practice, this means that the peace summit initiated by President George W. Bush will not convene next month. Nor next year.

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Declarations Of A United Jerusalem Are Just Empty Slogans In A De Facto Divided Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yossi Beilin - (Opinion) October 15, 2007 - 3:39pm

Two weeks ago a young journalist, Daniel Ofir, reported a story on "Hot News" that ought to have created quite a storm: The Palestinian Authority is paving a highway inside Israel's sovereign territory in "united" Jerusalem, our eternal capital. The highway begins in the Atarot area and passes through the Kafr Akab neighborhood in Jerusalem along 2.6 kilometers inside the sovereign territory of united Jerusalem, and ends in Ramallah.

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Editorial: Positive Signs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
(Editorial) October 15, 2007 - 3:22pm

The two biggest problems straddling the Palestinian fence today — Israel on one side and the Palestinian divisions on the other — are currently undergoing treatment with possible remedy in sight. For one, Hamas has said it is ready to hold reconciliation talks with the rival Fatah group of President Mahmoud Abbas, hinting it might be willing to relinquish control of Gaza.

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Colonization And A Mediator's Bias Remain The Death Knells Of Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
(Editorial) October 15, 2007 - 3:20pm

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Middle East over the weekend to try and prod the parties into attending the planned Arab-Israeli gathering in Annapolis next month. Her arrival coincided with the 13th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to the late Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, and to Shimon Peres. The Oslo Accords that Arafat, Rabin and Peres signed in 1993 were a breakthrough in their day; but they never achieved their promise.

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Blair Admits He Is Shocked By Discrimination On The West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - October 15, 2007 - 3:19pm

While his aides munched tuna bagels thoughtfully provided by the Israeli military, a shirt-sleeved Tony Blair peered intently at a map showing the two main cargo crossing-points that will function between the West Bank and Israel once the 450-mile separation barrier between them is complete. Why, Mr Blair wanted to know from his host, an Israeli general in civvies, couldn't goods also be moved directly across the border from the nearby Palestinian industrial park that he is pressing Israel to approve?

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Condoleezza Rice Warns Israelis Over Land Grab
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by Carolynne Wheeler - October 15, 2007 - 3:15pm

Condoleezza Rice gave a warning yesterday that progress would be slow as the US Secretary of State embarked on a round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East in advance of a peace conference next month. Progress on a joint statement on Palestinian statehood, the framework of the US-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland, is still so limited that invitations have yet to be issued, and Dr Rice conceded yesterday that the coming days were unlikely to produce any significant breakthroughs.

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Israel Signals Readiness To Cede Parts Of Jerusalem To Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Mark Tran - (Special Report) October 15, 2007 - 3:13pm

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, today signalled his readiness to give up parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians in an apparent concession ahead of a US-sponsored peace conference. Mr Olmert noted that Israel had built a series of thriving Jewish neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem, but signalled that Israel's control of Arab areas was not necessary.

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